Bomber five admit Dank drugs link

Five Essendon staffers, including James Hird's personal assistant, have admitted to the AFL and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority that they were treated last year by Stephen Dank with a variety of injections and oral supplements.

All five, along with Hird, have been accused by Dank of taking the World Anti-Doping Agency -blacklisted drug hexarelin. Although ASADA investigators have rigorously questioned all the staffers, it remains unclear whether any were aware they may have taken a WADA-banned drug. The five are Hird's assistant and Essendon football co-ordinator Sue Anderson, assistant coach Simon Goodwin, development coach James Byrne, conditioning coach Paul Turk and sports scientist Suki Hobson.

Under WADA and ASADA regulations, none of the coaches, assistant coaches or staffers have broken the anti-doping code whether or not they are found to have taken hexarelin – a drug which may increase human growth hormone levels and which WADA has banned since 2004.

Chris Pollard, the lawyer representing Goodwin, Byrne, Anderson, Turk and Hobson, would not comment when contacted on Friday. All five, along with Pollard, have signed stringent confidentiality agreements.

AFL Coaches Association chief Danny Frawley said he had no knowledge of the allegations nor the admissions made by the staffers to the AFL and ASADA investigators. "I'm not privy to that and nor should I be," said Frawley. "When this is all over, I expect I'll know more."

Frawley said Pollard had temporarily stepped off the board of the coaches' association because he was representing most Bombers coaches, conditioning and other football staff, although not Hird or his senior assistant Mark Thompson.

Essendon is funding the assistant coaches' and other staffers' legal counsel, but the allegations along with those being faced by Essendon players has caused an environment of some instability among the club's support staff.

Most assistant coaches come out of contract at the end of this year and club chairman David Evans has already vowed to move quickly to restructure the football department following the damning Ziggy Switkowski report. He did not return calls on Friday from Fairfax Media.

Only Dean Robinson to date has been stood down and is expected to soon officially depart the club.

This week, the ASADA and AFL investigators moved their focus to Essendon's players, a number of whom are accused of taking the anti-obesity drug AOD9604 before and during the 2012 season. The drug had not been approved for human use and was banned by WADA in early 2011.

It was reported by News Ltd last month that Hird would admit to having been injected twice by Dank and that those injections contained amino acids. Dank had previously told Fairfax Media he discussed the use of hexarelin with Hird "at length".

"He asked me if players could use it and I said no. Mind you, he wasn't the only coach who was a regular user of it," Dank said.

Hird said of Dank's allegations: "These claims are horrifying to me, and are being made by a person or people who appear determined to destroy my reputation.

"I have at all times fully adhered to, and promoted, the WADA code and the AFL rules, and the code of ethics of the Essendon Football Club."

It is understood the staffers have said they were treated by Dank for a variety of reasons ranging from lack of sleep to weight management to being generally run down and suffering from poor immune systems.

AFL chief Andrew Demetriou has said that while coaches could not be banned by ASADA for taking banned substances, they could face sanctions from the AFL for bringing the game into disrepute.

Demetriou said on Friday he remained unaware of all of the identities of those staffers alleged to have taken hexarelin.

Dank said Hird also took Melanotan II, a drug popular among bodybuilders because of its tanning effect and the claims that it aids sleeping and libido. Dank defended the use of hexarelin or other supplements by Hird and other football department staff.

"They were using something to give them a bit of lift to help with the stresses of their job. It was something they were well entitled to do. It is not a bad example. It is medicine," he said.

British-born Hobson joined the Bombers after working with Robinson at Geelong. The strength scientist moved into the AFL system after being head-hunted by Robinson following her work at the Queensland Institute of Sport. Byrne, too, came to Essendon from Geelong.

Turk, who previously worked at North Melbourne, is also the conditioning coach for the AFL umpires, a position he has held since the start of 2011.

Goodwin, who has been implicated in a series of text messages allegedly passed between him and Dank, moved straight from a decorated playing career with Adelaide into Hird's coaching "dream team" at the end of 2010.

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